Apples
by TheShoelessOne
Summary: First in SENSE series. Jayne smells. River decides to point it out. Oneshot, Rayneish


"You smell."

She had that silent, creepy way of sneaking up on him--anyone for that matter--that would have any lesser man a little puddle in his boots. Jayne's concession was for his shoulders to jump in momentary shock at having been snuck-up on, then a short aggrivated sigh as he returned to cleaning and assembling the various guns before him. He'd thought about sneaking back to his bunk when the Captain and Zoe weren't hovering to make sure he kept both eyes on the cargo, but he'd rather handle the moonbrain than have himself thrown out the airlock.

Somehow, River had managed to single him out that afternoon. After their pitiful lunch (Simon honestly tried, the poor bastard), she'd been practically tethered to him--his side of beef to her wolf. He offered her an incredulous eye over his shoulder to recieve the extra shock of finding her hanging completely upside-down from the grating overhead. Masking his surprise with apathetic indifference, he lifted one eyebrow in that slow Jayne way, questioning the mass of dangling hair and those big doe eyes she flashed around.

"I stink so gorram much, why you hangin' around like you ain't got no one else to bother?" He either ignored the nearly-clever wit of his statement or didn't know he'd uttered a pun. River blinked, owl-eyed, at the merc, as if the answer was devastatingly obvious.

"All of them are bothered. Simon bothers Kaylee; a bee buzzing around fresh fruit but with no intention to pollenate." Jayne rolled his eyes, a smirk pulling one edge of his mouth upward--that was the Doc, all right. "The Captain and Inara bother one another, an endless dance with bruised toes and injured heartstrings too thin to pluck. The dance Wash and Zoe perform is much different, and much louder." He nearly interrupted to say she shouldn't stick her mind in places it didn't belong, but he had a feeling she'd heard him before he'd even finished thinking it. "Shephard bothers himself; conflict within burns the insides of his ears, smoke black and thick obscures and confuses..." As she trailed off, she pressed small hands to either side of her head. There she remained for a steady minute, Jayne having returned to his guns and largely ignoring her.

At last, she dropped down silently, gracefully from the grating above and sat down on a large crate opposite Jayne and his guns. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap, legs crossed in a childish way. Jayne glanced up.

"You done?"

"Done? Finished with what?"

"Botherin'." He held one finger into the air and circled it around his head. "Buzzin', like yer brother."

"No one left to bother poor Jayne," she pouted. "What ever will the girl do? Only she is left to bother the smelly man." He grunted in reply, finished with one shining pistol and moving onto the next.

"Man's gotta smell like somethin'," he reasoned, not looking up as River began twirling her fingers in her hair, observing the twists and kinks with wide, wondering eyes.

"Like gun oil and man-sweat," she mused, cocking her head as she tried futilely to tame her hair.

"Fightin' a losin' battle, moonbrain," he laughed with a short glance up. With her fingers tangled in her mess of hair, she huffed slightly in admission to her predicament. A loose sigh, and he begrudgingly hailed her over with gun in hand. She moved wordlessly to sit in front of him, legs tucked under her and staring at her knees. He plucked her useless hands from her hair and they dropped into her lap.

"Smells different from Simon," she murmured, examining the lines on one of her thumbs. "Smells clean, sterile; cold and alone."

" 'Course Doc's gonna smell different," Jayne mumbled as he tugged at one of the tangles in her hair, wondering absently exactly how he'd gotten to be the one she bothered. "Fact is, everyone's got their own smell-- s'what makes trackin' the ugly ones so easy."

"Why?" River asked simply.

"Smell ugly," he replied with a devious grin. Following was a grunt of frustration aimed at her hair. "I ain't tamin' this bronco without a ruttin' brush or somethin'."

River reached into the front marsupial pocket of the oversized jumpsit Kaylee had leant her earlier that morning, pulling out a small brush of unknown origin. Jayne eyed it strangely, wondering if he paused long enough she might forget that she wanted him to brush her hair. A long, semi-awkward moment later, the brush remained handed toward him. Defeated, he took it and started with the tangles at the bottom of her hair.

After a brief interlude of peaceful silence, River interjected suddenly-- "Does the girl smell ugly?"

Jayne chose his words carefully. "Naw," he assured her at last, "just different. Nothin' like 'Nara." The attempt to get the conversation away from her was successful, as River nodded slightly.

"Her smell is appealing," River offered. Jayne's mind wandered slightly at mention of the companion and whatever went on in that shuttle when she was away. The girl at his fingertips cleared her throat; obviously the thoughts weren't only his. He shook his head, then continued the thread of conversation.

"Yeah, like flowers and them smell-good sticks she lights up in the shuttle. Real exotic-like." He paused, a smirk tugging his lips up. "Drives Cap'n stircrazy." River's frame jiggled slightly from silent laughter at their shared image of their Captain fuming at the ears as he watched Inara in all her splendor down the dim corridors of _Serenity_. She stopped to cock her head, thinking deeply.

"Shephard smells of pages and solitude, stale as a book left unopened." She turned her head slightly, to catch his approval or shame. He pushed her chin back to face forward, continuing to pull the brush through her hair.

"Now you're gettin' a hold on it. Here, gimme one."

She smirked; another female would do. "Strawberries and metal. Forbidden fruit and a hard day's work."

"Aw, now that's just simple. Don't think anyone but Kaylee likes strawberries the way she does." He worked out one of the larger kinks in her hair. "Here, I got one: dust and angry--_lots_'a angry. And gunpowder."

"Captain Reynolds," she said after a brief pause. "His pride stinks nearly as much as yours."

"_That_ was below the belt," he uttered, grudgingly admitting that she spoke the truth. River bit her lower lip in thought.

"Fire," was all she said at first, then added, "after a rain. Burnt wood turned to dust, showered in humility, with embers crackling red and angry."

A hard pause, and the brush worked silently in her hair. "Hell," he said at last, "sounds dead-on Zoe. Wouldn't'a said it all fancy, myself." At that point, there was only Wash and the two of them left uncategorized, and he planned on bringing the pilot into their game when he heard her strangely small voice.

"What does the girl smell like?"

Under any other circumstance the question would have sounded absolutely silly. But even Jayne knew they weren't just talking about tracking anymore. Not after the way she'd talked about Zoe. He left an adequate hole in the conversation, thinking things over in that slow Jayne way that might have others think he was something of an idiot. Maybe Simon might make a crack about the hampster turning in its wheel or somesuch. But he was genuinely thinking of the right answer.

"Y' mean besides crazy?" His attempt was followed by a tight smirk. She turned her head to stare at him with one large brown eye. He looked pointedly at the brush in her hair. "Hell, I don't know.Sometimes like them meds the Doc gives ya, but that ain't too bad. .. Like you been runnin' around too much, but y' don't smell like me when I been liftin'. Like someone opened a window, and it's too dusty inside. Like when ya get that metal taste there on the roof of your mouth--" He stopped to indicate by opening his maw and jerking a thumb at his pallate. River immitated by running her tongue along the roof of her mouth and making a short clicking sound. "Yeah," Jayne muttered, feeling suddenly mighty embarrassed, "somethin' like that."

"And Jayne smells like apples," River said in a nearly chipper voice. He was surprised when she moved the hair away from her face to reveal a thin little smile on her lips. "Apples and guns, metal of a knife--and blood. Blood inside and outside, all warm and red." Almost fully turned to him, she pressed two fingers lightly against the vein in his neck, and he almost jerked away. "Smells like electric life, always moving." She grinned up at him through her tame hair. "Mostly apples."

A moment longer, and his hand came up to brush hers away from his neck. Hell, with her hair all civilized and a smile instead of a scream, she looked almost normal. In the absence of anything else to do, he pressed the borrowed brush into her small hand. "Here," was the most intellegent response he could conjure. "Now go on and bother the Cap'n or somethin'. Had my fair share of botherin' today and I ain't lookin' forward to any more of it." Despite the commands, River only smirked.

"Jayne has done a service for the girl. Kindness must be repaid."

"_Oh_, no," he responded, getting to his feet and dwarfing her. "I ain't fallin' for any of that. Any 'repayin' goes on and I'm out the airlock, so turn your skinny little _feng le_ ass up those stairs and--"

His sentence was left hanging in the stale air as she pecked a kiss against the hollow of his jaw, barely tall enough to reach that comfortably. Any reaction on his part was bound to be too late as she whirled up the stairs, brown hair trailing after as she spun on the landing. She disappeared from sight a moment later, probably off to the bridge to bother whoever she came across.

Jayne, still staring into space, finally regained motor function and blinked again. Carefully, as if someone had been watching the whole time, he ran the back of his hand across the spot on his jaw she'd claimed with her lips and wiped the kiss away. He gave a little apprehensive glance around, to see if Simon or Mal were hiding in the wings to carry him off to his certain doom, and at last allowed one edge of his mouth to twitch upward. As soon as it had appeared, it was gone, replaced by an angered furrow of the brow. He settled himself back down on the crate with his disassembled guns and went stoicly back to work.

"_Apples_," he muttered darkly under his breath. "Gorram... little..."


End file.
